What China Has to Do with the Mysterious Death of an Indigenous Leader in Ecuador

Last week the leader of an Ecuadorian indigenous group, José Isidro Tendetza Antún was found by his son in an unmarked grave. The outspoken critic of a controversial Ecuadorian mining project had been due to speak at the United Nations climate talks in Lima. Authorities said that the circumstances of his death are still unclear, but it is certain to draw more attention to Chinese-funded resource extraction in the Andean nation.

Labor Movement ‘Concertmaster’ Tests Beijing’s Boundaries

When local officials warned striking shoe factory workers in China's Pearl River Delta this summer that they were breaking the law, a slight, bespectacled figure barely 5 feet 5 inches (1.65 meters) tall faced them down.

"Where is the law that says striking is illegal? If this activity is prohibited by the law, then you need to say so with crystal clarity. Which law is it?" labor lawyer Duan Yi said he told them, with his characteristic growl.

They had no answer.

On First Annual Constitution Day, China’s Most Censored Word Was ‘Constitution’

On December 4, China’s first annual Constitution Day, Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily posted the complete text of the Chinese constitution to its Weibo microblogging account, accompanied by the upbeat hashtag: “Let’s all read the Constitution!”

The BRICS Bank: China’s Drive to Shake Up Development Finance

A China in Africa Podcast

Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (aka the ‘BRICS’) are moving forward with an ambitious plan to shake up the clubby world of development finance. The new BRICS bank announced over the summer 2014 is expected to have a profound impact on the African development finance sector as part of China’s broader effort to re-orient the international system away from the West. Pretoria University research associate Sanusha Naidu is a leading expert on the BRICS and joins us to discuss the implications of China’s agenda on African development finance.

The Great Lake in Danger

Measuring the Depth of Lake Nicaragua Along Proposed Canal Route Confirms the Worst Predictions

Southwest of the Maderas volcano, where the Rivas coast is a line fading into the distance, Lake Cocibolca’s inmensity is on prominent display: breezes softly comb stretches of water that are seemingly endless. Sonar has marked this as the deepest point on the route for the “Great Inter-Oceanic Canal” through a lake that the Spanish conquistadores, stunned upon encountering it, named, “the Sweet Sea.”

A Catastrophe for Nicaragua’s Great Lake

A Q&A with Jaime Incer Barquero

Eighty years old, with more than a dozen books on national geography and natural resources to his name, he is the most authoritative voice in the country on environmental issues. Jaime Incer Barquero, former Minister of the Environment and Natural Resources Ministry (MARENA), urged Ortega’s administration and Hong Kong Nicaragua Canal Development Investment Co., Limited (HKND) to adjust the “Great Canal” project, the mega construction turned over to the Chinese businessman Wang Jing, which, according to Incer Barquero, could have a devastating effect on Nicaragua’s Great Lake.